The first spirit came at one o'clock. It was a strange figure like a child and like an old man at once, with a bright light springing from its head. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Past," it said. "Rise, and walk with me." They passed through the wall, and Scrooge stood on a country road on a winter day. He knew every stone of it. "These are only shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost. In a bare schoolroom a lonely boy sat reading near a feeble fire, forgotten by his friends. "That is myself," said Scrooge, and he began to cry. Then they saw old Fezziwig, Scrooge's first master, who cleared the warehouse for a ball on Christmas Eve and made twenty people happy with a few pounds. "He had the power to make us happy or unhappy," said Scrooge slowly, "and it cost him almost nothing. I wish I could say a word or two to my clerk just now."